Studies of monkeys perched on branches accompanied by an inset drawing of the
skull. They come from a pioneering work on the natural history of Mozambique
by Wilhelm C.H. Peters, who spent several years there studying and documenting
the fauna. These illustrations possess striking realism, posed with
no trace of anthropomorphism, the fur and features carefully delineated.
One is labeled as being at ½ scale.

Wilhelm C.H. Peters was the assistant of the anatomist Johannes Müller,
and later became director of the Berlin Zoological Museum. With the
enthusiastic support of Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt,
Peters undertook a natural history expedition to Mozambique, which was
the crowning achievement of his career. He explored the entire coastal
region and spent nearly a year up the Zambesi River deep in the interior.
He returned with enormous collections which he described in the illustrated
series of volumes Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique...
in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführ, a work admired
for its scientific rigor and comprehensiveness, covering mammals, birds,
reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. Peters' specialty
was herpetology, to which he contributed the description of 122 new
genera and 649 species from around the world, about 65% of which are
still considered valid today.

Johann Daniel Lebrecht Franz Wagner was a German painter.

Condition: Generally very good with very minor overall toning and wear.